5 Free and Easy Ways to Donate to Good Causes

We all want to make a difference to this very needy world, but we all have a life to lead. Our busy schedule may make us hesitate to volunteer for charities. Our credit card bills may stop us from making donations. As a full-time graduate student, I could not afford to donate much to charities or to dedicate much time to volunteer. Therefore, I found some free and easy ways to make a difference. Even if you are already making decent donations or offering your time to volunteer, you can still make more donations with these methods. They require minimal effort but make a huge difference! The best thing is that you simply do what you normally do to make free donations. It's that easy.

1. Search to give

Searching is probably what we do mostly on the Internet. If a donation is made for each search, it really adds up! Here are two websites that make donations to good causes every time you search. The source of money is advertising revenue.

Search Kindly

SearchKindly is powered by Google, so you get quality results. 100% of the revenue goes to a particular non-profit organization determined by a poll every month. Roughly 1/3 of a cent is raised per search. It sounds like not much, but it can add up.

Good Search

GoodSearch gives you the same search results as Yahoo! search. Although they donate only 50% of the revenue, they make about 1 penny per search to the organization you specify. What's better is that you may put your non-profit organization, school, or church on the list after verification. That is what I did for my organization, American Zen Association.

2. Email to give

After searching, what we probably do most is sending emails. Here are two free Web based email services that make donations to good causes for each email you send. Just like Hotmail, they both provide junk mail filter and virus scanning. The mailbox size and other detailed features may be different though.

Care2 email

Care2 provides a 100MB space and donates 5% of its revenue to environment-related and other good causes. You can choose a number of fun domain names for your email address.

Planet Save

Planetsave gives you a 25MB space and donates 25% of the revenue to green causes.

3. Chat to give

Do you use instant messenger? The new Windows Live Messenger i'm initiative donates to the organization you support with every instant message you send. Setting up is easy. You just download and install the latest version of Windows Live Messenger and type the text code, corresponding to the organization you choose, on your display name.

4. Shop to give

The online stores donate a portion of the sale to charities when you link to the store through one of the websites shown below. Each website has different store database, proportion for donation, and designated good causes. You get the same product or service and pay the same price, so why not do it through these websites to make a difference? Just go to one of these websites first, link to the online store, and place your order as usual.

Good Shop

GoodShop is the other service offered by GoodSearch. When you shop online through the links on GoodShop, an up to 20% of the sale price (proportion varies; 3% in average) donation is made to the organization you support. They have over 300 online stores in their database.

Care2 Shopping

Care2 is a comprehensive website offering a number of services, including shopping to make donations. With over 200 online shops, you can buy almost everything and make free donations to environmental causes.

iGive

iGive offers a list of 680 stores and up to 26% (proportion varies) of each purchase donated to your cause. Like GoodSearch (GoodShop), you may add the organization you support to their database.

5. Click to give

The last way to make free donations requires a little more effort because you need to remember to click. What I do is to set the website as my homepage, so I am reminded to click when I start my browser. Every time you click, the sponsored stores make donations to help different causes specified by the website. Note that only one click counts from a certain computer for each day.

The Hunger Site Network

The Hunger Site Network contains six websites that you click a button to feed the hungry, fund free books to kids, or save rainforest land. Clicking to give on this network is my first free donation action. I have been clicking on these websites daily since six years ago. More than 100,000 people click daily on each website in this network.

Care2 Click To Donate

Besides email and shopping, Care2 also has a list of websites offering click to give. Most of them are environment related, including global warming and endangered species. However, they also have some causes that help women and children in need.

Now you can make free donations everyday while you surf the Web, send emails, and shop online. Making free donations to good causes is that easy! Spread the word and let more people know how to make a difference on a daily basis simply by doing things they're already doing.